


Lifetime in Repeat

by FiveTail



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, M/M, The Meta Is Real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-10-01
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:58:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FiveTail/pseuds/FiveTail
Summary: No need to take everything so seriously--it's just a game, after all.[ Overwatch fanfic commissions that all take place within the same AU. ]





	1. Breathe. [McHanzo]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Commissioned by [draayder](http://draayder.tumblr.com/).  
> 
>
>> Hanzo/Mccree on a date THE REST IS UP TO YOU
> 
>   
> I THINK I FUCKED UP THE DATE PART. I'M SORRY.

  
  


The late afternoon sun began its descent into the horizon, painting the skies above a soothing palette of orange and purple.

Hanzo kept at a formal kneel atop the rocky bluff, his hands pressed flat upon his folded knees. He listened to the waters crashing and frothing against the jagged cliffside below, keeping mental time with the natural metronome, an occasional breeze misting cool water against his skin. If he shut his eyes and he focused, carefully, he could hear the mechanical grinding of the lighthouse perched on the rocks ahead, lumbering to keep its light in rotation as its salt-rusted body was battered by the waves.

He caught the wind of tobacco before the sound of Southern drawl.

“Howdy.”

Hanzo responded with a soft noise—a gracious acknowledgement, all things considered.

“I’ve been meanin’ to tell you all day.” McCree plopped down, stretching his legs as he rested his elbows on his knees. His spurs clattered harshly against the rocks. “White n’ baby blue suits you just fine. You're lookin’ downright charmin’.”

Hanzo gave him a quick glance, and a slow smirk. “And you are looking as gaudy as ever.”

Chuckling, McCree made a point of shrugging his American flag-patterned serape over his arm. “It ain’t gaudy, it’s _patriotic_. I’ll take my little slice of freedom whenever I can get it.”

A lit cigar weaved between his fingers, McCree brought it to the side of his mouth and _breathed_ and let the smoke sit on his tongue, blowing out a thick cloud of white before offering a puff to the man sitting beside him. Hanzo eyed the cigar for a moment, taking it between his thumb and index finger; he wrapped his lips around it and drank in the smoke, smoothly, as if he were drawing tobacco from his own pipe, knowing not to inhale.

“Unhealthy habit,” Hanzo muttered, letting the smoke ghost past his lips.

Shrugging, McCree took back the cigar from him. “We’ve died from worse.”

Painted weapons still at their hips, the two men took in the scenery the way they couldn’t during their missions here, their resting frames draped with red, white, and baby blue to the backdrop of the Gibraltar sunset. Seagull cries pierced the surrounding quiet, while speedboats cut aimlessly across the crystalline surface of the Mediterranean sea. All going nowhere. All nowhere at once.

“It’s the same boat, y’know.”

“...to what are you referring?”

“The ship,” McCree clarified, motioning with his cigar-toting fingers to the massive vessel drifting lazily across the surface of the water. “Same boat as it was last time we were here, carryin’ the same load.”

“So?”

“Means it’s floatin’ around in circles for no goddamn reason. Ain’t that strike you as a little odd?”

“I had not noticed.”

McCree clicked his tongue. He pointed towards the sky. “Have y’noticed _that_?”

Hanzo quirked an eyebrow. “...the sun?”

“Never gets any lower. Like it’s _painted_ up there. Y’ever actually _been_ here at night, Han? ‘Cause I sure haven’t.”

“Scheduled start and finish times are a more reasonable explanation than claiming the sky is not real.”

“We’re spread out all over the world, ‘round the same ol’ bases to fight the same ol' goons, over ‘n over again. Same time. Same places. Same damn cargo ship. We’ve been at it for months _._ How much of all this is a fancy screen and a trick of the light? I reckon it’s more’n we think.”

“What of the mountains?” Hanzo asked, motioning to the island in the distance. “Are you suggesting they, too, are fabricated in some way?”

“No tellin’ from here. Fancy a swim?”

Hanzo shook his head solemnly, as if he were condemning the notion. “Entertaining the idea of such conspiracies will only drive you mad. The world around us is no less real because we are restricted to operate within borders. If you need to face a mountain to acquire proof of this reality, the same must be done for every inch of the world you would not otherwise hold in your own two hands.”

“Then I’ll just have to touch every single inch of the world, won’t I?”

McCree sounded distant, and it did not escape Hanzo’s notice.

Without further hesitation, Hanzo clutched the weapon resting at his side, the deceptively light frame of the bow scraping against rock as he lifted it and rose to his feet.

McCree blinked up at the man now towering over him. “Han?”

Hanzo said nothing. He reached behind himself and drew an arrow from his quiver, nocking the arrow against the string of his bow in one, smooth movement.

McCree got to his feet at once; on instinct, his hand hovered over his holster while he scanned the area, keeping his cigar pinched between now-gritted teeth. Hanzo must have sensed someone nearby, he figured—he always had a better ear for the quiet ones.

McCree’s vision flickered back to Hanzo for a signal, for reassurance, but Hanzo had already drawn his string.

The man’s arms flexed with the effort, the outline of every well-trained muscle defined gorgeously under the sudden strain, etching bulging ridges into the elaborate ink set against his skin. His head was lowered, his posing _seamless_ with the ease of practice and mastery; his entire frame was grounded and steady, not trembling a hair under the extreme tension, in spite of the fact the bow’s drawstring weight was, in McCree’s firsthand experience, as heavy as a fully-grown man.

He kept silent, focused, and McCree took in the sight of him the way he couldn’t during missions.

Hanzo aimed high.

A moment later, the arrow flew from its temporary resting place, a sleek flash of blue piercing the sky’s gradient of orange and purple until it was completely out of sight.

McCree let out a low whistle as he watched it disappear. “What was all that ab—“

“Hush,” Hanzo snapped, eyes fixated in the distance, “watch.”

So McCree watched.

A few moments later, Hanzo’s arrow hit the mountain across the sea, fragmenting across solid rock and exploding into multiple replicas of itself on contact. The glowing scatter arrows bounced and ricocheted in the far distance, with rocks and cliffs and crevasses lighting up from the projectiles’ influence in the exact way a holograph wouldn’t.

“Does that ease your worry?” asked Hanzo, and he had the gall to sound mildly concerned.

McCree barked his laughter.

“You’re right, you’re right, I’m probably just thinkin’ too much.” He pressed his metal palm up against his forehead, nudging up his hat. “Besides, I don't need this nonsense drivin’ me crazy. I already got you.”

Hanzo scoffed through his teeth.

Raising himself on his feet, he pressed a firm kiss against the taller man’s lips before pulling away and tugging the brim of his hat down over his face.

McCree tried to recover, and failed miserably.

“Aw, shucks, darlin’,” he drawled, trying to keep his voice smooth and steady through the red quickly spreading across his cheeks, “I told you to warn me before you go doin’ stuff like that.”

“Be bold, Jesse. The sky may fall at any moment.”

And the other man chuckled, his low, gentle laughter bringing a small smile of content to Hanzo’s face. McCree pushed up his hat to make way, and he leaned over to brush his lips briefly across Hanzo’s forehead.

The cowboy leaves without further incident, but the archer can’t stop himself from staring at the sun.

Once Hanzo was certain he was alone, another one of his arrows found itself nocked into his bow—a different arrow, for a different purpose.

Hanzo aimed for the boat, this time, and fired without hesitation.

The sonic arrow embedded itself into the side of the cargo ship with a heavy, metallic _thunk_ , before large sensory bubbles pulsated from the arrowhead and engulfed the entirety of the vessel.

There was no one aboard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you enjoyed this chapter, [please consider reblogging the post on tumblr](http://fivetail.com/post/150482125107/lifetime-in-repeat-chapter-1-breathe-mchanzo)!
> 
> this is my very first overwatch fanfic!! i don't read overwatch fanfic whatsoever so i hope i did an okay job. feedback would be super lovely. i also made the gif from scratch. i have never made a gif before, so recording custom-game posing and figuring out how to make a decent gif from the footage took a while. please do not use without credit.
> 
> title of this fic is from [the eden project's "circles"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9b30XSteDA). it's kinda this universe's theme song.
> 
> we've got some platonic pharah/reaper shenanigans up next, so stay tuned!!


	2. React. [Pharah + Reaper]

  
  


 ‘Uncle Gabe,’ was what she called him, once.

He had been one of her mother’s most trusted comrades, and not unlike her mother, he was strong, tactically capable, and a leader in every sense of the word. He would train with Fareeha regularly when she was a little girl, as one of the few people Ana entrusted with such a task. Gabriel was never a man of many words, but he had his own system. A pat on the back for a well-placed shot. A thumbs-up for a job well-done.

For several years, he supplemented Fareeha’s training in martial arts and strategy and marksmanship alike. One of the most memorable things he taught her, however, was the importance of treating her weapons properly; he'd shown her how to clean them, how to store them, how to take them apart and put them together again.

Gabriel Reyes taught Fareeha that a loadout needed to be taken care of, as it was responsible for saving your life and the lives of others each time you set foot on the field.

Reaper, on the other hand, had a private artillery of disposable shotguns he couldn’t bother to reload.

Many things had changed in the years they spent apart—the years Fareeha honed her skills, the years the world thought Gabriel dead—but several things had stayed the same.

As she grew quickly through the ranks, Fareeha donned the Eye of Horus and the head of a jackal, sacred mythological symbols of power and protection, intimately entwined with the concepts of guarding souls into the afterlife. Gabriel, on the other hand, had taken on the mask of another creature, a revered animal of his culture's folklore said to be harbingers of misfortune and death.

Fareeha looked to honor her ancestors’ superstitions; Gabriel looked to embody them.

It was nothing short of tragedy-induced hubris, Fareeha believed, committed by a sad man who was robbed of his purpose in life and was forced to find meaning in death.

-

One night, while stationed in the Temple of Anubis headquarters, Fareeha did a final sweep of the perimeter before lights out, determined to smoke out any intruders lurking around during ceasefire. All she found tonight, however, was Junkrat alone in a corner of the spawn room, facing the wall. What she caught him doing was infinitely more disturbing than what it was she expected to find.

He was tossing grenades at the wall, cackling all the while.

Fareeha’s rockets and Fawkes’ grenade projectiles were among those immune to the team’s friendly auto-fire protection technology; this meant that their weapons could not damage their teammates, but Fareeha and Fawkes could suffer splash damage from the explosions they created.

This _also_ meant each grenade Fawkes lobbed against the concrete blew up on him, ripping off charred and bloodied chunks of flesh with each explosion as random parts of his body lit aflame.

She had no idea how long he’d been at it.

Eight seconds after Fawkes killed himself for what must have been the umpteenth time, Fareeha grabbed him by the back of the collar and dragged him from the respawn room.

“ _Oh, c’mon—lemme have this, Chief!_ ” Fawkes whined loudly as he was towed back to his bunk; his tone was as inappropriately nonchalant as a child who’d just had his toy taken away. “ _It’s the only thing I got control over, anymore!_ ”

Fawkes’ words are what she thinks of the following morning, when she watches Reaper teleport into a small room where the enemy’s entire team was preparing to flank the objective.

Fawkes’ words are what she thinks of when Reaper prepares to execute Death Blossom, an elegant name for an inelegant solution.

A fifty-fifty risk of him being killed before its completion.

Ritualistic suicide.

Fareeha charges into the doorway as fast as her armoured boots would take her across the sand.

No sooner does she enter the room does Reaper turn ethereal, half his form dissipating in a cloud of glowing mist as he pivots in place, spraying whirlwinds of heavy fire to take down everyone in his line of sight he possibly can.

Fareeha leaps until her helmet touches the low ceiling, and she unleashes her barrage.

She targets those who don’t go down as quickly as they should during Reaper’s rapid fire—those who try to escape, those who turn their sights on Reaper during the tail-end of his period of vulnerability. The rocket barrage’s massive blast radius is confined in the close quarters— _too close_ —and, unable to stop, Fareeha feels the resulting explosive damage ricochet from her armor, draining most of the life from her.

Seconds later, they simultaneously receive a notification that the entire enemy team had been wiped.

Breathing hard at low health, Fareeha lands on her feet, mustering a glare at Reaper that articulated her anger at his recklessness more than her words ever could. Gritting her teeth, she braces herself, expecting him to bark about how he would've been able to handle it himself, or snap about how he didn't ask for her help, or maybe even let loose with a snide, condescending comment about how _sweet_ it was to see her get _protective_ all of a sudden.

To Fareeha’s surprise, Reaper raises his fist in front of himself.

A thumbs-up for a job well-done.

It takes her a moment to process, but Fareeha firmly nods once with understanding. She wasn't sure what frightened her more—the fact that their combined skills made them such an effective team now, or the possibility that there was more of Gabriel’s consciousness still in there than she thought.

She watches as he assumes his wraith form and glides out of the room in search of the nearest health pack.

Although Reaper was born once Gabriel’s heart stopped beating, Fareeha still felt right protecting him, either way.

It was the jackal’s duty to watch over the dead, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Commissioned by [SirKai](http://sirkai.tumblr.com).
>
>> Something with Reaper and Pharah that involves a thumbs up. Reaper is the one who does the thumbs up > v >
> 
>   
> MAN I HOPE THIS IS OKAY
> 
> [if you enjoyed this chapter, please consider reblogging the post on tumblr!](http://fivetail.com/post/151184116137/lifetime-in-repeat-chapter-2-react-pharah)


End file.
